Herman Mankiewicz

American screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz is the older brother of Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Before joining the film industry, Mankiewicz was educated at Columbia and at the University of Berlin. While in Germany he began working as a Berlin correspondent... more

American screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz is the older brother of Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Before joining the film industry, Mankiewicz was educated at Columbia and at the University of Berlin. While in Germany he began working as a Berlin correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. He later returned to the U.S. where he gained notoriety among New York's cultural elite as the drama editor of The New York Times andThe New Yorker. In 1926 he moved to Hollywood where he wrote and co-wrote many screenplays and adaptations. His most famous work is the Oscar-winning screenplay for Citizen Kane (1941); though technically he wrote it in collaboration with Orson Welles, most of the script was penned by Mankiewicz himself. Occasionally he worked as an executive producer on Marx Brothers' comedies such as Horse Feathers (1932) and Duck Soup (1933). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide less